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The menu at Renee's Gourmet Pizzeria offers the usual pizzeria fare, including calzones, salads and flatbread.

It's what the newly opened Troy pizza place doesn't serve that is its marketing proposition: It's entirely gluten- and nut-free.

Industry experts say they don't know of another such pizzeria in metro Detroit — or in Michigan.

Co-owner Gabe Hertz named the restaurant for his 14-year-old daughter, who has a severe nut allergy along with celiac disease, the gluten intolerance affecting around 1 percent of Americans.

After several years of watching his daughter become sick from cross-contamination after eating out, Hertz decided to leave his position as co-owner of a Bloomfield Hills Relax The Back franchise and open the pizzeria in February with business partner Tim Karapici at 1937 W. Maple Road, in the Cambridge Crossings shopping center.

Hertz had no formal culinary education or restaurant experience; his only connection to the food industry was a catering business his mother owned years ago.

He invested $300,000 into opening Renee's and spent a year developing his gluten-free pizza dough — a blend of rice, tapioca and bean flour.

"I figured if I could make dough that did not taste like cardboard, and actually tasted really good, then I could not only attract people who were gluten- and nut-free, but also regular customers who want to eat gourmet pizza," he said.

Items are homemade and screened to be free of contamination from nuts and gluten. Signs are posted on the door prohibiting customers from bringing in food containing those ingredients.

"We had a couple sneak in baby food that was processed in a facility that had nuts, and we had to sanitize the whole area," he said. "We can't take any chances."

Hertz said he knew the pizza also had to be price-competitive. The 12-inch specialty pizza is $12.99 and the 16-inch is $16.99. He said he sells between 80 and 150 pizzas a day.

The menu also includes chicken strips made with Fritos in the breading, french fries and family-recipe Hungarian goulash with dumplings along with cinnamon rolls and an assortment of other baked goods.

Stacy Goldberg, founder and CEO of Detroit-based Savorfull LLC, which connects businesses and organizations with allergen-free foods, said Renee's is targeting the two populations most in need of restaurant dining options. But the key to success, she said, will be getting the word out to the gluten- and nut-free communities.

Steve Pollard, owner of a Guido's Premium Pizza Inc. franchise in Okemos and the adjoining WOW-With Out Wheat Deli, Michigan's only restaurant to be certified gluten-free through the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness, said he supports Hertz's effort, but cautioned about pricing and only offering gluten-free items.

Pollard said he would not be able to stay in business if not for his regular pizza business, even though sales of his gluten-free pizzas have increased 70 percent since he began serving them seven years ago.

"There would not be enough customers to support a separate entity," he said.

WOW's offerings are prepared in a gluten-free facility next to Guido's but are served to customers seated in the main dining area, so there is no separate dining space.

Due to the cost of gluten-free products, Pollard said he has to charge more for them. A regular 12-inch specialty pizza at Guido's is $12, while a WOW 12-inch specialty pizza is $22.

Pollard sells about 70 regular and about 22 gluten-free pizzas daily.

Hertz, however, said he doesn't intend to expand into the regular pizza business; he is able to keep costs down, he added, by making everything from scratch — including milling his own flour.

Though he has no revenue projections, Hertz has a goal of getting his pizza into schools and stores such as Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's.

"Right now, this is all passion; it's not about making money," he said.